Seasonal Load-Path Accountability for Residential High-Albedo Heat Adaptation

Abstract

Where high-albedo roofs and pavements reduce the amount of heat absorption through solar rays, the annual residential-energy implications will depend on whether the home appliances used are electric-powered cooling, gas space heating or heat pumps. The key issue here is how the 15–30% neighborhood high-albedo application should be interpreted, where air-temperature reliability is strongest under specific conditions and the same housing stock has both cooling and heating technology overlap. Seasonal Reversal–Technology Allocation Sizing (SRTAS) analysis is employed using the following numerical examples: temperatures for Los Angeles and Seattle in terms of validation quantities; Pacoima treated-area high-albedo impact; demand for cooling reduced by albedo and cool roofs; and a 89-home Los Angeles County residential-equipment inventory data set. The residential equipment data set involves 58 homes using electric cooling, 53 using gas heating, 40 using electric cooling and gas heating, and 6 using heat-pump cooling and heating. Los Angeles offers 25.7% contraction in near-surface air-temperature MAE at all hours and 32.4% in the highest built-volume cells. On the other hand, Seattle offers modest contraction in all hours, although it achieves 30.3% contraction in MAE during the hottest hour, thus creating a hot-tail concentration of 4.04. The 15–30% albedo range offers approximately 0.0107 °C cooling per treated-area percentage point while the 30% albedo plus cool-roof case results in an 11% reduction in the increase in cooling demand, hence avoiding 57.9% of the warming-induced increment. It changes the claim that technology allocation: gas-heating exposure 0.923 relative to electric-cooling exposure; non-heat-pump reversal pressure 0.815 and heat-pump exposure 0.108. The research data confirm heat adaptation and cooling demand reduction, but not any unconditional annual energy savings statement, unless cool roof envelope advantages and heat pump conversion are mentioned in the same context in one claim.